Thursday, March 26, 2009

A second government minister is under investigation by parliament's sleaze watchdog over expenses in a further blow for beleaguered Brown, as the watchdog rounds on two New Labour chancers in the fag-end of his government. Employment minister Tony McNulty's job should be on the line, after an investigation was launched by the standards commission over claims he abused his expenses.

Two homes McNulty joins two homes secretary Smith, saying he did nothing wrong, after the Mail on Sunday exposed his greed by claiming £60,000 second-home expenses on a London house where his parents live, just a few miles from his main home.

Yet another New Labour chancer in the fag-end of a government which is up to its neck in the deep doo-doo of sleaze.

Home secretary Smith is already under investigation after claiming £20,000 a year in expenses on a room she rented from her sister in London, claiming it was her 'main home'.

On a sticky wicket, the employment minister says he had not broken commons rules and said he would not return the estimated £60,000 he received for the property in his Harrow East constituency.

But shadow commons leader, Alan Duncan said it was "not clear" that McNulty had operated within the rules and there were some serious questions to be answered: "There he is brazenly trying to bat this away by saying - Oh well, the system is not very good but I didn't do anything wrong."

Meanwhile, New Labour MPs are breaking out in a sweat with next week's commons publication of a list of expenses claimed by MPs in the last financial year.

The figures are expected to show MPs enjoyed taxpayer-funded expenses worth up to £95 million, an average of around £147,000 each, with New Labour MPs caught in the 'McNulty Triangle' shown up to be amongst the most expensive, worst culprits.

McNulty and Smith are not the first ministers to be caught fiddling their MPs' homes expenses in a squalid rip-off at the taxpayers' expense.

Brown's favourite cabinet couple, Ed Balls and wife Yvette Cooper were let off the hook after it was claimed they had been able to "maximise" their taxpayer-funded second homes allowances, by claiming their London home was their main home.

Going through all the rigmarole is starting to wear very thin. This bunch of fiddlers may not have broke commons rules but they broke common rules of morals and decency.

And that's while the rest of the country is having to suffer the misery and hardship of unemployment and a deep recession depression.

Ministers are on the take in what is nothing short of a common commons scam.

With ministers wrapped up in their own arrogance and self-interest and with the full backing of Brown, any minister caught fiddling expenses has been able to ride out the storm.

Westminster will be looking at how bunkered Brown plays this one and stands by his man. Unless McNulty decides to spend more time at one of his homes with his family, bringing the whole rotten pack of cards down with him.